Although expecting to evaluate several vendors, Alcoa saw that the RR Donnelley EZ Start Solution was cost effective and full service. “Nothing else was needed”, says Alcoa’s Controller Matt Dinardo. His team realized that since RR Donnelley and EDGAR Online would create the XBRL documents, “we could just focus on the review process instead of having to tag each line item of our own statements.”

Dinardo was assigned an RR Donnelley project manager and they decided to start with Alcoa’s as-filed 2nd Quarter 2007 report. Within a day Alcoa had an XBRL translation which took about four hours to review. Subsequent reports took less than half that time, explains Dinardo, but “the first one was a learning curve. I wanted to carefully read and understand each tag definition.” He then routed the report with his comments to the Director of Financial Accounting and to Alcoa’s Manager of Corporate Consolidation. A conference call was scheduled for the next day to go over their comments and questions with RRD and EDGAR Online XBRL specialists.

“It definitely gives you a high level of comfort to be working with this level of expertise,” says Dinardo. “They were very knowledgeable and agreeable and understanding of the changes I wanted to make and could answer every question on the spot. It was a very efficient process.”

The next learning curve came with the 2007 10-Q report, which was more complex. It contained an additional financial statement, and a shareholders equity report that included an embedded financial statement. “The additional disclosures added a little time back into the review process,” says Dinardo, “but again, the experts were helpful and quick to have the phone conversation on short notice, review my requested changes, and deliver them next day.”
Various studies by the SEC and outside analysts have shown that it takes between 80 and 240 hours for a corporation to independently prepare, review and file their financials in XBRL. Asked if he thinks, in retrospect, he could have created the XBRL documents on his own, Dinardo says “yes, I could have selected most of the tags, and probably created my own custom tags, but the process would have taken a long time, and I would not have had the comfort level of knowing that the custom tags were appropriate to SEC requirements.”

Dinardo anticipates a third learning curve when the XBRL taxonomy is used to tag notes and the MD&A, not just line items numbers. “But having gone through it with the support and knowledge of a dedicated team of EOL’s experts we’re comfortable now using the nomenclature and understanding the mapping process. I know the people assigned to our team were deeply involved in helping develop the taxonomy, and that comes through—we have the experts at our side.”
Alcoa has 97,000 employees in 34 countries with various subsidiaries and legal entities. “Fortunately, they are all on the same general ledger,” says Dinardo, “but I see where XBRL would be a tremendous advantage to companies who are not in that situation. XBRL provides a lot of ease and efficiency in pulling information from different financial systems into a single format.”

As for advice to other companies considering XBRL, “Companies are worried about the new requirements. But you’re going to find out all the things you feared have no basis in fact.” Dinardo says “the process is fast, it’s effective, and inexpensive and you’ll be glad you did it before the mandates comes.”

Thomson Reuters’  new Checkpoint I•Metrix, is an online productivity and workflow solution for tax and accounting professionals. Subscribers can instantly retrieve current, detailed financial information directly from their Excel spreadsheets. Checkpoint I•Metrix delivers financial data within hours of being filed with the SEC and significantly reduces the time it takes to prepare benchmark analysis or create internal financial dashboards. Checkpoint I•Metrix is world class XBRL technology combined with world class tax and accounting knowledge all in a single tool, to manage risk, detect anomalies, assist in transparency, and gather and benchmark data – while leveraging the latest in financial reporting standards. BENEFITS of Checkpoint I•Metrix:

* Delivers powerful data sets and analytical capabilities directly to  Microsoft® Office Excel, improving data analysis workflow.
* Provides a simple, streamlined method for subscribers to integrate datasets into their workflow, saving hours of traditional “cut and paste” spreadsheet work while increasing confidence in the accuracy of information.
* Provides the most accurate and timely XBRL financial data in the marketplace with the lowest error rate.
* Streamlines user effort – a single click links any data cell directly back to the EDGAR source filing to give validity and the XBRL accounting definition of the line item.
* Automatically updates financial models previously created by a subscriber in I•Metrix with the most recent financial data, saving the subscriber time when generating repetitive reports such as quarterly reports to directors.
* Provides direct linking from EDGAR source filings into SECPlus for relevant information and tools associated with SEC compliance.

Increased demand for peer-to-peer analysis and recent SEC initiatives to require XBRL filings are driving the need for seamless integration of key sources like EDGAR Online’s SEC filings and Checkpoint I•Metrix. “Integrating these productivity solutions into SECPlus further strengthens our product offering and helps us best serve our customers,” said Keith Haurie, Vice President, Product Management, Research & Guidance for Thomson Reuters.

The UTC trial began late in 2005.  Since then, UTC has used XBRL for all its earnings releases, a complete form 10-Q and Part II of its 10-K form. UTC quickly discovered Stantial reports 200 hours of labor have been eliminated from the quarterly reporting process, while the overall process controls are strengthened. UTCs past and current processes are illustrated in Stantial’s report published in the AICPA’s online Journal of Accountancy. UTC’s trial demonstrated that “XBRL can be implemented for a reasonable price and without significant knowledge of the underlying technology.”